Courage And Comfort: The Heart And Soul Of Caring

September 17, 1986|By Harry Reis

It was the third time I had passed the glass case embedded in the wall of the brilliantly lighted hall leading to the operating room and the cardiac care unit.

This time I stopped, concentrated and read the designation inscribed on the metal valve behind it. ''Oxygen'' it read. To the right the hall was lined with gurneys. Blue-clad nurses with plastic shoe protectors were hurrying with determination to pre-assigned tasks and emergency calls. A few hours earlier I watched them wheel my wife, Davie, into the operating room for her second heart operation in 10 years.

Now, I was waiting for someone to tell me I could see her. That the operation was over.

I knocked on the door of the cardiac care unit. A professional but friendly nurse greeted me, and with some sixth sense seemed to recognize me for she said, ''It'll be just a few minutes.''

During that wait I reflected on the events that brought us -- my wife and me -- to this point. We had come to Humana Hospital-Lucerne in Orlando on the advice of her physician for tests to determine the reasons for the discomfort in her chest. It has bothered her, off and on, for quite a while, and she feared the thought of another bypass operation. The memory of the first, 10 years earlier, was still vivid in her mind.

The tests proved she was indeed in distress and surgery seemed the only course open. Sympathetic doctors, a surgeon and cardiologist, again explained the procedure to her. Considering her fear, her quiet acceptance of her fate can be considered nothing less than a tribute to courage.

The nurse again appeared at the door to the cardiac care unit. I was permitted a 10-minute visit but Davie didn't know I was there. Consciousness had not yet returned. Tubes protruded from her mouth and electrodes ran from beneath the covers near her heart to monitors beside her bed.

She had survived the ordeal of the tubes and the respirator, was now breathing on her own and was back in her room on the third floor west/north.

Those wonderful humanitarians called nurses watched over her day and night; changed the intravenous drips; gave her medication and, most important, encouraged and comforted her.

Days later, as she was preparing to leave her room to go home, a woman -- I believe she was a nurse's aide -- who had befriended my wife folded Davie in her arms, kissed her on the cheek and whispered, ''Take care of yourself.''

I walked beside the nurse wheeling Davie to the front door when, for some strange reason, an old saying suddenly flashed through my mind -- a truism that has been with me most of my adult life. It traces its origin to the writing of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius 1,800 years ago and profoundly states -- ''Men exist for the sake of one another.''

It probably never occurred to the ancient Roman that history would conclude -- ''Men and women exist for the sake of one another.''